Genuitec has announced a public beta for GapDebug, a free debugger for hybrid mobile apps built on top of the Cordova/PhoneGap SDK. GapDebug integrates versions of the Safari Webkit Inspector and Chrome Dev Tools to offer an integrated debugging experience on OS X and Windows.
GapDebug does not offer any feature that Safari Webkit Inspector or Chrome Dev Tools do not already offer. Rather, it aims at making debugging more efficient for developers addressing both the iOS and Android platforms.
Wayne Parrot, VP of product development at Genuitec, describes GapDebug through the following words:
Think of the iOS remote WebKit Inspector and the Chrome remote debug tools in a single environment that runs on Windows and OS X equally.
As Justin Noel, developer of the Kids in Touch app, wrote in his review of the GapDebug beta, GapDebug offers several advantages over plain Safari or Chrome mobile app debugging:
- More than one device can be connected and accessed in the same window, e.g. the iPhone Simulator and an Android device.
- More than one app running on the same device can be debugged in the same window.
On iOS, GapDebug fixes a Safari shortcoming that prevents the inspector of a currently running app to remain open if the inspector window is moved to the background. This forces the developer to reopen the inspector, which is a nuisance in itself, according to Justin, but "what is worse is that any logging events that occur on app resume are usually lost as you can't resume the app and get the inspector open before those events occur." Under GapDebug, says Justin, the inspector window remains always open and does not lose any logs.
As mentioned, GapDebug can be freely downloaded and according to Genuitec "will alwyas be free for local debugging."